All this long harangue （which might very well have been spared）our knight delivered because the acorns they gave him reminded himof the golden age; and the whim seized him to address all thisunnecessary argument to the goatherds, who listened to him gaping inamazement without saying a word in reply. Sancho likewise held hispeace and ate acorns, and paid repeated visits to the secondwine-skin, which they had hung up on a cork tree to keep the winecool.
Don Quixote was longer in talking than the supper in finishing, atthe end of which one of the goatherds said, "That your worship,senor knight-errant, may say with more truth that we show youhospitality with ready good-will, we will give you amusement andpleasure by making one of our comrades sing: he will be here beforelong, and he is a very intelligent youth and deep in love, and what ismore he can read and write and play on the rebeck to perfection."
The goatherd had hardly done speaking, when the notes of therebeck reached their ears; and shortly after, the player came up, avery good-looking young man of about two-and-twenty. His comradesasked him if he had supped, and on his replying that he had, he whohad already made the offer said to him:
"In that case, Antonio, thou mayest as well do us the pleasure ofsinging a little, that the gentleman, our guest, may see that evenin the mountains and woods there are musicians: we have told him ofthy accomplishments, and we want thee to show them and prove that wesay true; so, as thou livest, pray sit down and sing that ballad aboutthy love that thy uncle the prebendary made thee, and that was so muchliked in the town."
"With all my heart," said the young man, and without waiting formore pressing he seated himself on the trunk of a felled oak, andtuning his rebeck, presently began to sing to these words.
ANTONIO'S BALLAD
Thou dost love me well, Olalla;
Well I know it, even though
Love's mute tongues, thine eyes, have never
By their glances told me so.
For I know my love thou knowest,
Therefore thine to claim I dare:
Once it ceases to be secret,
Love need never feel despair.
True it is, Olalla, sometimes
Thou hast all too plainly shown
That thy heart is brass in hardness,
And thy snowy bosom stone.
Yet for all that, in thy coyness,
And thy fickle fits between,
Hope is there- at least the border
Of her garment may be seen.
Lures to faith are they, those glimpses,
And to faith in thee I hold;
Kindness cannot make it stronger,
Coldness cannot make it cold.
If it be that love is gentle,
In thy gentleness I see
Something holding out assurance
To the hope of winning thee.
If it be that in devotion
Lies a power hearts to move,
That which every day I show thee,
Helpful to my suit should prove.
Many a time thou must have noticed-
If to notice thou dost care-
How I go about on Monday
Dressed in all my Sunday wear.
Love's eyes love to look on brightness;
Love loves what is gaily drest;
Sunday, Monday, all I care is
Thou shouldst see me in my best.
No account I make of dances,
Or of strains that pleased thee so,
Keeping thee awake from midnight
Till the cocks began to crow;
Or of how I roundly swore it
That there's none so fair as thou;
True it is, but as I said it,
By the girls I'm hated now.
For Teresa of the hillside
At my praise of thee was sore;
Said, "You think you love an angel;
It's a monkey you adore;
"Caught by all her glittering trinkets,
And her borrowed braids of hair,
And a host of made-up beauties
That would Love himself ensnare."
'T was a lie, and so I told her,
And her cousin at the word
Gave me his defiance for it;
And what followed thou hast heard.
Mine is no high-flown affection,
Mine no passion par amours-
As they call it- what I offer
Is an honest love, and pure.
Cunning cords the holy Church has,
Cords of softest silk they be;
Put thy neck beneath the yoke, dear;
Mine will follow, thou wilt see.
Else- and once for all I swear it
By the saint of most renown-
If I ever quit the mountains,
'T will be in a friar's gown.
Here the goatherd brought his song to an end, and though Don Quixoteentreated him to sing more, Sancho had no mind that way, being moreinclined for sleep than for listening to songs; so said he to hismaster, "Your worship will do well to settle at once where you mean topass the night, for the labour these good men are at all day doesnot allow them to spend the night in singing."
"I understand thee, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "I perceiveclearly that those visits to the wine-skin demand compensation insleep rather than in music."
"It's sweet to us all, blessed be God," said Sancho.
"I do not deny it," replied Don Quixote; "but settle thyself wherethou wilt; those of my calling are more becomingly employed inwatching than in sleeping; still it would be as well if thou wert todress this ear for me again, for it is giving me more pain than itneed."
Sancho did as he bade him, but one of the goatherds, seeing thewound, told him not to be uneasy, as he would apply a remedy withwhich it would be soon healed; and gathering some leaves ofrosemary, of which there was a great quantity there, he chewed themand mixed them with a little salt, and applying them to the ear hesecured them firmly with a bandage, assuring him that no othertreatment would be required, and so it proved.
CHAPTER XII
OF WHAT A GOATHERD RELATED TO THOSE WITH DON QUIXOTE
JUST then another young man, one of those who fetched theirprovisions from the village, came up and said, "Do you know what isgoing on in the village, comrades?"
"How could we know it?" replied one of them.
"Well, then, you must know," continued the young man, "thismorning that famous student-shepherd called Chrysostom died, and it isrumoured that he died of love for that devil of a village girl thedaughter of Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the woldshere in the dress of a shepherdess."
"You mean Marcela?" said one.
"Her I mean," answered the goatherd; "and the best of it is, hehas directed in his will that he is to be buried in the fields likea Moor, and at the foot of the rock where the Cork-tree spring is,because, as the story goes （and they say he himself said so）， that wasthe place where he first saw her. And he has also left otherdirections which the clergy of the village say should not and must notbe obeyed because they savour of paganism. To all which his greatfriend Ambrosio the student, he who, like him, also went dressed asa shepherd, replies that everything must be done without anyomission according to the directions left by Chrysostom, and aboutthis the village is all in commotion; however, report says that, afterall, what Ambrosio and all the shepherds his friends desire will bedone, and to-morrow they are coming to bury him with great ceremonywhere I said. I am sure it will be something worth seeing; at leastI will not fail to go and see it even if I knew I should not return tothe village tomorrow."
"We will do the same," answered the goatherds, "and cast lots to seewho must stay to mind the goats of all."
"Thou sayest well, Pedro," said one, "though there will be no needof taking that trouble, for I will stay behind for all; and don'tsuppose it is virtue or want of curiosity in me; it is that thesplinter that ran into my foot the other day will not let me walk."
"For all that, we thank thee," answered Pedro.
Don Quixote asked Pedro to tell him who the dead man was and who theshepherdess, to which Pedro replied that all he knew was that the deadman was a wealthy gentleman belonging to a village in those mountains,who had been a student at Salamanca for many years, at the end ofwhich he returned to his village with the reputation of being verylearned and deeply read. "Above all, they said, he was learned inthe science of the stars and of what went on yonder in the heavens andthe sun and the moon, for he told us of the cris of the sun and moonto exact time."
"Eclipse it is called, friend, not cris, the darkening of thosetwo luminaries," said Don Quixote; but Pedro, not troubling himselfwith trifles, went on with his story, saying, "Also he foretold whenthe year was going to be one of abundance or estility."
"Sterility, you mean," said Don Quixote.
"Sterility or estility," answered Pedro, "it is all the same inthe end. And I can tell you that by this his father and friends whobelieved him grew very rich because they did as he advised them,bidding them 'sow barley this year, not wheat; this year you may sowpulse and not barley; the next there will be a full oil crop, andthe three following not a drop will be got.'"